Preliminary conclusions suggests that the composition and
diversity of the active decomposer component of food webs (primarily
fungi and bacteria) often have the strongest influence on
ecosystem functioning and plant productivity (Laakso & Setala,
1999; van der Heijden et al., 2008), and this effect is often not
influenced by the presence of soil fauna that feed upon these bacteria
and fungi (Fig. 2) (VreekenBuijs et al., 1997; Mikola &
Setala, 1998).